Phonetics, as defined by the Merriam-Webster® dictionary (Collegiate 10th ed.), is a system of speech sounds of a language or group of languages, and further comprises the study and systematic classification of the sounds made in spoken utterance. Hence, the phonetic system represents the practical application of this science to language study. An important part of phonetics is phonemes.
Phonemes, as defined by Merriam-Webster® dictionary (Collegiate 10th ed.), are abstract units of the phonetics system (associated with a particular language) that correspond to a group of speech sounds. For example, velar |k| of cool and the palatal |k| of keel are distinct sounds in the English language and are part of a set similar speech sounds. Another term related to Phonemes is allophones.
Allophone, as defined by Merriam-Webster® dictionary (Collegiate 10th ed.), is one of two or more variants of the same phoneme. For example, the aspirated |p| of pin and the unaspirated |p| of spin are allophones of the phoneme |p|.
Orthography is another system associated with the sounds of a given language. Orthography, as defined by Merriam-Webster® dictionary (Collegiate 10th ed.), is the representation of the sounds of a language by letters and diacritics. A diacritic is further defined as a mark near or through an orthographic or phonetic character or combination of characters indicating a phonetic value different from that given the unmarked or otherwise marked element. An example of a diacritic is the acute accents of résumé, which are added to the letter e to indicate a special phonetic value.
Additionally, some foreign languages often use diacritics to double the force of the phoneme, and they further use geminated graphemes. Graphemes are the set of units of a writing system (as letters and letter combinations) that represent a phoneme. Geminated graphemes are a sequence of identical speech sounds (as in meanness or Italian notte).
One of the advances in recent years is the impact of computers in the field of phonetics. One of the major challenges associated with human speech and computers is automatic speech recognition or ASR. ASR is defined as the ability of a computer-based system to recognize and decipher human voice. ASR systems are usually programmed to recognize a simple set of words that are common to a group of users, or sometimes ASR systems are programmed to recognize a complex set of words associated with a specific user.
One common problem associated with phonetic representation of foreign language (such as Arabic) is the abundance of phonetics associated with such languages. Arabic language displays a difference in orthography and phonetics associated with the language. This is best illustrated by the example of geminated graphemes. The feature of gemination is inherent in most Arabic phonetic alphabets, which is defined as doubling the force of the phoneme that is marked by a superscript sign. During editing, people do not write this sign unless it is crucially needed to decipher a certain meaning from another. That's why the grapheme is written only once. Another example is that the language exhibits different variations between the kinds of vowel distribution; either they are short or long vowels. Tables 2 and 3, as detailed hereafter, represent the different features of vowels and gemination consecutively. Thus, software representing such a system comprising a myriad of phonetics inevitably requires a significant allocation of memory on a computer-based device for storage of such plurality of phonetics.
A variety of software applications are available today that utilize the phonetics system to recognize the speech of human users. But, none of the prior art software utilizes an automatic speech recognition system that uses an orthographic system comprising a compact set of phonetics. Whatever the precise merits, features and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills the purposes of the present invention.